House Republican Discipline Falling Apart: Hooray!

The Hill reports the encouraging news that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is losing his grip on his caucus. Some details:

Sixteen Republicans defected Wednesday in a vote on the rule governing consideration of a government-funding bill meant to prevent a government shutdown. The defections could have caused the rule to fail since most Democrats voted also voted against it….

Votes on rules are supposed to be party-line and serve as tests of a caucus's unity. So it was disconcerting for leaders to see so many Republicans vote against the rule they had crafted….

Republicans were saved Wednesday by the fact that 17 Democrats missed the vote, possibly because of the poor weather in Washington that day. If those Democrats had all voted against the rule, it would have been defeated….

The dissenters were being pushed from the right, and from outside Congress itself:

Several conservatives switched their positions on the rule under pressure from interest groups that on Wednesday morning announced they intended to score votes on the rule.

Freedom Works, for example, was livid that GOP leaders refused to allow a floor vote on an amendment to defund the implementation of President Obama's healthcare law.

The conservative group sent out an action alert to its members on Wednesday under the heading "Demand Boehner Defund Obamacare."

Several of the seven lawmakers who supported passage of the bill but opposed the rule vote cited the Obamacare exclusion in explaining their votes.

Erick Erickson at RedStatecelebrated the 16, splitting them into a group of 10 he considers a reliable "Conservative Fight Club" and 6 fellow travelers on this issue:

The ten members of the Conservative Fight Club are:

Amash

Bridenstine

Broun

Gohmert

Huelskamp

Jones

Massie

Pearce

Salmon

Yoho

They are now the gold standard for conservatives in the House….

The other congressmen who stood with the Fight Club are:

Brooks

Fleming

Gingrey

Kingston

McClintock

Rohrabacher

Three of Erickson's "conservative fight club"–Amash, Massie, and Yoho–are interviewed at length in my March Reason magazine feature "Congress After Ron Paul."

Even Ron Paul told me in some interviews for my book Ron Paul's Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired that he tended to blunt his ideological opposition by mostly being a good party man on procedural stuff.

This CR is the best, and perhaps last, chance that Congress will have for making major reforms in spending for the foreseeable future. Yet the House plans to just pass the CR at current spending levels, and is even using a closed rule to limit debate and prevent any amendments from being offered that might reform spending in the bill. Even in the absence of a budget, Congress must attempt to return to some semblance of regular order, where spending bills are allowed to be debated and amended by members on the floor.

FreedomWorks also notes the 14 Republicans who voted against, not just the rule regarding the continuing resolution (to keep government spending going), but against the resolution itself:

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Boehner, Reid, Pelosi, McCain, Warren, Bernie Sanders etc. Is Congress always this bad? It sure seems like this is the worst shit sandwich in Congress since Gingrich was there. He really doesn’t need any help.

Yeah, the Baby-boomers (AKA Worst Generation) is running the show now. Their parents suffered the Great Depression and fought and defeated the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese, and the vowed that their children would never know the deprivations they knew…

They ended up raising the most spoiled, self-entitled generation in American history; part of me hopes all the Baby Boomers’ social security checks bounce. It would look great on ’em.

That the Tea Party victory put Boehner in the Speaker’s chair is an incredible irony–they should have sent him packing back in 2010.

Until Boehner is out of the Speaker’s chair, we’ll know that the Republicans in the House aren’t really serious about solving our problems.

I’ve been saying this to my conservative father ever since Boehner’s been speaker. In fact, I told my dad that I’d know the Republicans weren’t serious if they chose Boehner as speaker. They haven’t disappointed.

Freedom Works, for example, was livid that GOP leaders refused to allow a floor vote on an amendment to defund the implementation of President Obama’s healthcare law.

No shit sherlock. Somebody tell me, if you can, why the hell we’re still saddled with that abortion known as Obamacare. If it’s really that unpopular, and the Tea Party has the house, then why the hell haven’t they killed it through the simple expedient of not funding it?

Tell me the Republican party is worth a shit today. What continues to astound me is that most of the world seems to be looking at Obamacare like “ho hum, no big deal”.

It’s gonna be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and finishes bankrupting us.

But on that note, the only thing these people understand is challenges to their power. If you live in one of these districts with an R who’s mushy on gun control, let him know there’ll be a primary challenge if they cave. Then be that primary challenge if you have to. You don’t have to beat him, you can just bleed him – and they know that.

You won’t be laughing when Boner lets the House vote on Feinstein’s AWB bill, and a coalition of mushy Republicans joins the Dems in passing it.

If the bill makes it to the House, that’s the way to bet.

The biggest barrier to Feinstein’s bill right now is Red State Dem Senators. They got rolled for OCare, they can be rolled again.

I really don’t have the scratch for it right now, but I’ll be checking to see of that combat shotgun I have my eye on would be effected by this, since I want to get the high-cap after-market tube for it.

The prices for ARs are starting to slightly creep downward again because the same dolts who ran out to buy one because the MSM was talking gun control, now think because the media’s not talking about it anymore that the threat has passed.

Toomey made a stand-up move last week in blocking that awful judicial nominee (and standing with RP on the filibuster), and Rothfus sent me a letter pledging to oppose all gun control…. but I’m still keeping the pressure on them. Casey is just hopeless.

Much as I despise Boehner and the Establishment GOP, I can’t say that an opposition party run by the likes of Broun, Kingston and Gingrey wouldn’t be worse.

At least – since Kingston and Broun have both announced they’ll be running for Saxby Chambliss’ Senate seat – we’ll have the opportunity to see if one of them can top the ‘evolution, embryology and Big Bang theory is a lie straight from the pit of hell’ line.